The market for project management tools is overheated. Jira, Linear, ClickUp, Asana, Monday — and against this backdrop, the emergence of yet another task tracker invites justified skepticism. But Huly is worth a closer look.
Huly grew out of the Hardcore platform and positions itself as an open-source alternative to Jira and Linear. Its key differentiator: it is not just task management, but a full-fledged team collaboration platform — with documents, chat, a virtual office, and even a built-in planner.
What’s Inside
- Task management — kanban boards, sprints, backlog, epics, subtasks
- Documents — collaborative editor, wiki
- Chat — built-in messenger with channels and threads
- Planning — roadmaps, timeline, milestones
- Virtual office — a fun feature for distributed teams, letting you see colleagues online
The interface is designed with attention to detail: smooth animations, a well-crafted dark theme, everything is responsive. You can tell the designers didn’t cut corners.
Self-Hosting
Huly can be run on your own server via Docker. However, this is not a “run docker-compose up and go have tea” situation — the configuration requires setting up S3-compatible storage, an email server, and an OIDC provider. The documentation helps, but be prepared to spend an evening on it.
Limitations
The project is young — the API is not as rich as Jira’s, and there are fewer integrations. There is no mobile app. The Community version has some limitations compared to Enterprise.
Verdict
If you are tired of Jira and want something fresh, beautiful, and controllable — Huly is an excellent choice. It’s still a bit early for large enterprise teams of 500+, but teams of 50–100 people are a perfect fit.